11 Dec. 2006
Monday
I am looking for my ancestors who live in Schoepfsdorf/Schoepsdorf, Germany. I know they arrived in the US in 1858, but can find no further information going back. My maternal grandfather's name was Zeno Tranel (1905-1993). What I do know about the family is that they were very "secretive"
as to why they left Germany. Can anyone please help? Thank You.
Cindy Nielsen
Volunteer Genealogist
East Dubuque District Library
Dear Cindy,
You can see several Tranel names here:
http://www.emslanders.com/tra.htm
That whole website has emigrants who came from the Emsland (along
the Ems river) near the Dutch border.
Also, look here for Tranel and you will find them in the towns of
Lingen and Emsburen.
Good luck,
Barbara
Cindy,
I neglected to give you the site for the Lingen and Emsburen search:
http://meta.genealogy.net/metasuche/index.jsp
Do a search with just the name of Tranel and you will find the listings.
On the far right, click and you will get the Ortsfamilienbuchs of Lingen and
Emsburen and you will find Tranels there.
Barbara
Dear Cindy,
You can see several Tranel names here:http://www.emslanders.com/tra.htm
That whole website has emigrants who came from the Emsland (along
the Ems river) near the Dutch border.Also, look here for Tranel and you will find them in the towns of
Lingen and Emsburen.Good luck,
Barbara11 Dec. 2006
MondayI am looking for my ancestors who live in Schoepfsdorf/Schoepsdorf, Germany.
I know they arrived in the US in 1858, but can find no further information
going back. My maternal grandfather's name was Zeno Tranel (1905-1993).
What I do know about the family is that they were very "secretive"
as to why they left Germany. Can anyone please help? Thank You.Cindy Nielsen
Volunteer Genealogist
East Dubuque District Library_________________________________________________________________
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Cindy,
Have you seen this page with 137 Tranels listed:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=haverhill_iowa&id
=I11114
Zeno is there as well as all the others. His parents are listed.
I found my German family to be secretive about a lot of things. They
just didn't tell people everything. And that includes my own parents.
The obvious reason for anyone coming to the USA was to find a better
life. There was land that they could have, especially good for farmers.
Only the eldest son in Germany would inherit the farm and all the other
children had to find another way to make a living. America was filled with
promise for them.
There are some items in the archives with the name Tranel. Look here:
You'd have to use just the name Tranel - adding Bernard or Zeno is no
help.
Google searches for Tranel may be helpful as well.
Barbara
Interesting assessments. "Secretive" perhaps, but "silent" might be more accurate. This "don't ask, don't tell" characteristic was not unique to German immigrants exclusively; much the same could be said for many other groups who pulled up stakes from their native soil to take up new starts in foreign lands. It may seem more pronounced amongst our German ancestors since many of the Deutsch are rather business-like, and less openly glib, by comparison to say most Brits or Yanks [cites self as proof]. To this day Germans tend to be hard working, "no-nonsense" types, and this is found across most of the German landscape. If you travel through Europe you can't help but notice how the Deutsch tend to be a tad more formal and reserved than many of their neighbors (look to Italy or France for instant contrasts), though exceptions will always apply when painting in broad strokes.
Still, this could probably be called a traditional Germanic trait, from a land that has mastered education and science, the arts and warfare, as well as any. The Bavarians to the south probably present the best counter-image, with more jovial dispositions on the whole (probably due to the warmer climate found there lol). Then again, perhaps I'm erring by oversimplifying things.
It should be remembered that while places like America and Canada have certainly presented attractive destinations for emigrants to "better their lives," just as many Germans left their native soil reluctantly as those who came in open embraces. I need look no further than at my own ancestors for evidence of this. The matriarch of our clan longed, till the day she died, to be back in her native community of Hildesheim. She never fully adjusted to the cultural upheaval the settling into America presented, and never forgave her husband for their departure (and here, she ran a German Institute for classical studies in early California, and certainly could not be called a child of deprivation in her newly adopted country). Sadly the family patriarch had little choice in the matter. For other families and individuals, just the opposite would have been the case. America must have seemed like a big breath of fresh air!
It's a given that a degree of desperation was one of the driving forces that allowed many to depart the Fatherland without looking back. Germany was - and has been for much of the modern era - a highly overcrowded area. The population has burgeoned in recent centuries (much like Japan in the East), and as a whole those nations possess only limited natural resources and land expanses to sustain their growing populations. It is not a reach to see the alleviation of these conditions as being one of the chief motivations amongst some of their leaders, to include the use of military power if necessary. Understandably it has been a concern of their neighbors that they have proven capable of using aggrandizement and the use arms quite proficiently at times - but then again, this is the tumultuous story of Europe and the West, dating back in like fashion to the Greeks, Romans and Celts, and the eventual arrival of the Germanic peoples as nation and empire builders in their own right. Unlike their cousins on the British Isles, no convenient seaports (or traditional naval masteries for that matter) present themselves to allow for colonial based solutions to such things, as was the rage in eras gone by.
We in the States have had it a lot easier in this regard. The Indian population simply stood no chance against the repeated drives and encroachments of our Anglo forbears who were looking to forge new homesteads in the virgin lands they found before them. When difficulties arose beyond what the homesteaders could take care of on their own, the US Army would invariably appear on the scene to smooth things over, often in unforgiving fashion. In taking the soil of North America for our own, we created an amazingly prosperous empire, one that barrels forth - not imperfectly - to this day. Only in our case, we had an abundant and undeveloped land mass to play with (unheard of in Europe), most of it rich in natural resources. We were thus in position to entice - even solicit - others to come over and get in on the spoils while they lasted. Obviously many did, with the Germans - noted for their work ethic and above-average educations and specialty skills - being welcomed as openly as any group.
Now that prefaced, I'd be careful in characterizing our forbears as being overly "secretive," unless it is in the "seeming" sense. There certainly has been a degree of anti-German sentiment during the periods of the two world wars which contributed to the downplaying of one's German ancestry at times. And I'm sure there were also some immigrants who carried distinctly anti-Prussian biases from earlier periods, likely peaking when Bismarck was hammering together a new and united Germany, and using the threat of arms to compliment his �ber-diplomacy skills. But probably most of what appears to be secretive can be attributed to the inevitable (and often difficult) turning of one's back to the past, which demands the letting go of old customs and familiar cultural icons - including one's given language - in the name of "getting on with things" in a new and foreign place. That can't be easy, especially when there is no turning back. The farmers who migrated to the rural expanses, being more isolated in "localized" communities, probably felt this impact less than those thrust into big city environs.
While we generally like to paint or imagine a rosy picture of this transformation, it wasn't always a thing of beauty. Jobs, often menial, had to be sought without delay -- there were few safety nets like we have in place today. This required the acquisition of a new language, if even rudimentarily, and not all who came possessed high skill or craft levels (though surprisingly many did). Many got by on only the most meager of circumstances, in quiet desperation (to borrow from Thoreau), like so many other emigrants. Suicide rates have always been high amongst transient classes and the displaced, German immigrants notwithstanding. The miracle is that so many made it, and made it well. The stories of those who assimilated successfully - and prosperously - could fill volumes to no end. In this new and developing nation, the opportunities were indeed sky high.
Today the Germans make up the largest identifiable group within the American populace, but the transition from German to American was not seamless or without hitches. Those early emigrant ancestors of ours worked HARD to make it in this country, as they did everywhere else they settled. As I see it, that somewhat silent nature we often glimpsed (or heard of) from those who came before us had more to do with the embrace of this barrage of changes than it did with carrying secrets, or sullenness, from the past. Couple this with what I mentioned earlier, the traditionally sturdy, reserved, even rigid Germanic bearing. Let's not lose sight of the fact that few of our ancestors had the time or luxury to pursue things like the family histories we now enjoy stitching together, or felt the need to look back over their shoulders, as most were too busy trying to make it day to day in the new world.
A bit long but .. Jb
Jb
well written, I enjoyed reading it (as usual).
Poh
Thanks Per-Olav. Your comment made it worth the time to put together those thoughts. Sometimes you wish for a little more discussion on these kinds of things, being that you hear them quite often from folks doing family research - German in particular - but realistically, most are here to track down their ancestors' particulars and not wax poetic. [plus my directness and/or opinions sometimes offend some folks, but what's new there?]
Still, I do understand those who ponder or question the seemingly "secretive" natures so many of our predecessors displayed. It is a regrettable but all too common trait amongst first, and even second, generation German Americans, and naturally compels those even further removed to question why. Why so much "hush hush" from our progenitors about their past? Personally I'm not sure how much of this is a consequence of the elders not speaking up and revealing such things, or the youngsters of the following generation - and most descendents beyond - not having enough interest to ask the questions when the getting was good. Particularly, as their lives were racing past in full burn mode, when finding a mate, making money and raising kids is first and foremost, and conversing with the "old fogies" in the family on such matters was rarely deemed worthy of the time or consideration. It cuts both ways, with faults lying on both sides. Sadly it takes half of forever for us to reach adequate maturity, to figure out what matters most, and by then it's either time to leave or throw in the towel.
Also, when parents are given to certain behavioral responses (like silence) on matters they deem off-limits (or of negligible importance), quite often the children will inherit those sensitivities too, if even unintentionally, as I think we all have seen. For that reason, this silence about the past often found its way to the second generation also (beyond that generation's desire to be as "American" as possible as quickly as possible, so as to fit in better socially). By the time the third or fourth generation began asking serious questions about their antecedents, the key players who might have provided the answers earlier had invariably left the scene. There simply wasn't anyone left, even among the contemporary elders, who could fill the void adequately - leaving one and all "in the dark" as to the family's roots.
Surely a small percentage of folks who left the Fatherland made their exits with what could legitimately be called "secrets" in tow, things they preferred covered up or forgotten for good, maybe a handful of illegitimate ship-offs, or remittance-men in contractual indenture, etc. etc. One can never truly be certain of such things in all cases. But the chances of those things being the root of any given family's lack of ancestral knowledge are still fairly thin in the end. I know for a fact our family had a rather turbulent send-off from Hannover, the story of which all current lines of descent - no matter how far removed from one another - have heard bits and pieces. Could there be a few secrets yet to be discovered in this regard? Certainly. But by far the most common German emigrant scenario is that of those who saw little promise with their stations in life and the overall status quo, be it for economic, political or religious reasons, and were looking for a way out. I'm sure a tiny percentage were folks in trouble or "on the run," still others must have been what we call 'free spirits,' and no doubt an ample amount were made up of adventurers looking to strike it rich in foreign places. But reasons for most to be "secretive" about their past? Maybe it'd be better to ask, what kinds of secrets could most of them have had?
Here's a kicker though. When my great grandfather's sister's husband [= great granduncle of mine] died of old age, after having lived in California for over 50 years, his surviving spouse - who had an otherwise pleasant and long life (nearly 90 years) and successful marriage (60+ years) inexplicably gathered up all of his things - his notebooks, his military papers, his old officer's uniform (of which he was always proud), his meticulously kept letters, pretty much their entire collection of surviving memorabilia and connection to the past, put it in a large pile in the backyard, and set it on fire. Even more disturbing, it was done amongst pleas from her daughter and grandson (who, with misty eyes, relayed this story to me many years ago when he himself was about to leave the scene) not to do so. But she was adamant and would hear none of it. Was this an intentional cutting off of the bridge to the past, perhaps to solidify forever the family's new American identity, or the inexplicable act of a old woman apparently out of her mind? Or indeed and perhaps, the obliteration of secrets from the past? One can only wonder at this late point.
Jb
PS. This was the daughter of the family matriarch I mentioned earlier (the matriarch who longed to return to Hildesheim). As you can see clearly, it amounts to two very different faces from the same family coin.